6/8/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly the rules. On a different plane, the agency contends that the award of salary differentials to Barit has no legal basis as she herself admitted that she received a monthly salary of SR600 that, if converted to US dollars in 1999-2000, was equivalent to US$200.00, thus negating the claim of underpayment of wages. The agency insists that Barit's wages had been paid in full as evidenced by the letters [19] of Hameed which show that all the salaries and other benefits due Barit, including her passport and other belongings, were paid and given to her before she was released from jail and repatriated to the Philippines, in accordance with the laws of Saudi Arabia. The agency bewails the CA's failure to give due consideration to what took place after Barit left her employer in May 2002. Barit was then apprehended by the authorities of Saudi Arabia for living-in with a man who was not her husband. She was imprisoned for having committed a marital offense and was discharged only after she served out her sentence, not exonerated by the court as she claimed. It further contends that the CA failed to give consideration to the policy of the government of Saudi Arabia not to allow the release of foreign workers from prison without their employers paying all their salaries and other benefits, as well as releasing all their personal belongings. The Case for Respondent Barit Through her comment [20] and memorandum, [21] filed on June 27, 2008 and October 22, 2008, respectively, Barit prays that the petition be denied for lack of merit. On the first issue, she argues that the agency resorted to hairsplitting or pure semantics in denying liability for her claim of underpayment of wages. She refers particularly to the agency's contention that wage differentials should not have been awarded to her because she did not include underpayment of wages as a cause of action in her complaint. She insists that the complaint form that she accomplished shows that her cause of action was for non-payment and underpayment of wages as the two terms appear in only one box. In any event, she explains that "to underpay," [22] means "to pay less than what is normal or required." Since she was paid only half of her wages, there was an amount that was not paid and this was the other half of her wages. There is, therefore, non-payment of this other half. She posits that in this context, she was correct in pursuing her claim of underpayment of wages. On the issue of non-payment of wages, Barit maintains that the CA committed no error in ruling that the agency failed to present substantial evidence to prove due payment of her wages while she was under the employ of Hameed. She takes offense at the agency's submission that the issuance of monthly payslips or the keeping of payrolls is seldom or rarely done in the case of domestic helpers. She argues that with this reasoning, the agency would be placing domestic helpers in a different category of workers, a distinction which is repugnant to the Constitution. Barit further argues that the burden of proving payment of what is due the employee is upon the employer and, since she is an overseas worker, also upon the employer's recruitment agency. She contends that her employer's letters, [23] purporting to show elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/32168 4/9